Snapshot: Ken lives on in the Tolpuddle tree

Taken in 2011, this picture shows me sliding my husband's ashes between the roots of the martyrs' tree in Tolpuddle, Dorset. My adult children, Kate and Daniel, were with me. It was very much a family occasion.

That morning, Kate and I had spooned ash from Ken's cardboard repository. We stared at the cindery grains; fascinated and a little uneasy at this novel view of husband and father. I opened a plastic bag. "Oh, no! Not Tesco," said my daughter, rejecting the association with the supermarket. "Let's have this scarlet one. It looks like the Red flag. Much more suitable for Dad." And so we three set off on our last journey as a complete family. That is if you count ashes as family.

The journey began in 1941 when I met Ken. He was 22, on leave from the navy. I was a schoolgirl of 17. What a culture shock. He was a socialist/Marxist, poor, charismatic, charming and intelligent, reading the Communist Manifesto. I was reading Emma. But the mind can be an erogenous zone. I fell in love. Later, when I carried a trade union banner, he teasingly christened me Sister Anna, a born-again socialist.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were Ken's heroes: six Dorset labourers who, in 1834, were convicted and sentenced to seven years' transportation for forming a trade union. Ken's father had been one of nine children. When his mother was widowed, four children were sent to distant relatives in Canada, and the rest began work, as young as 10 years old.

My husband's socialism had deep roots. He committed his life to working with deprived and troubled children. Charming, but resolute against suspicion and some hostility, he pioneered therapeutic counselling, believing that listening was more effective than caning. His book, The School Counsellor, was published in 1973.

We both knew he was dying the last time we visited The Old Court House in Dorchester, where the martyrs were tried and convicted. I watched him walk across the courtroom floor, past the judge's dais, past the jurors' benches, to stop in front of the old dock. He stood for a while, then reached out and touched the wood. It was a gesture that needed no words. When he saw my tears, he smiled and said, "Sister Anna, I think we both need a Dorset cream tea." How right. How Ken.

The snapshot reminds me of the day we took his ashes to Tolpuddle. We picnicked happily under the martyrs' tree – strong workman's tea and celebratory champagne. That seemed appropriate. Jane Williams

Playlist: Dad's special lullaby

Morningtown Ride by the Seekers

"Rockin', Rollin', Ridin'/ out along the bay/ all bound for Morningtown/ many miles away"

When I hear these lyrics, I am reminded of my childhood. Dad would sing this as a lullaby to my sister and me, except these were the only words he knew, so he'd just repeat them.

It sent us to sleep faster than anything else. I remember padding down the landing in the early hours of the morning to my parents' room after a terrifying dream about giants. The best remedy? A larger hand enclosing mine and leading me back to my warm bed, where I would be patiently sung to sleep again. My sister and I are now far too old for lullabies, but after all these years, nothing brings more comfort than these simple words in the arms of my parents. Hannah Waters

We love to eat: Never fail fruitcake

Ingredients

225g butter or margarine, softened

175g caster sugar

4 large eggs, beaten together

370g self-raising flour

180g mixed dried fruit

Rind of 1 lemon

Never fail fruitcake, made by Sonya Mills from a recipe she learned while living with a German family in the 1950s.

Heat the oven to 170C/gas mark 3½. Butter a large loaf tin. Cream the fat and sugar until the mixture turns pale. Add the eggs a little at a time, stirring after each addition. Sift the flour over the mixture, then stir in the fruit and lemon rind. Mix to a soft dropping consistency; if necessary add more flour. Put in the tin and bake for 1-1½ hours on a centre shelf. Cool for 10 minutes and turn out on to a wire rack.

This cake is much lighter than the English versions, with a delicious lemony tang. It is easy to make and never lets you down. I got the recipe from a German family I stayed with for a year in the early 50s, when I was 14. My mother had died of TB when I was 11, and my entrepreneur father had a disaster that left us temporarily homeless.

Those were formal days and I called my hosts Mr and Mrs C. They had a daughter of my age and we went to the same school. I thought the family were frightfully well off as the house was huge, with beautiful furniture and decor. Later I realised this was down to their German talent for sparen – economising. Mr C, who travelled to the city every day, took a packed lunch, and used his firm's luncheon vouchers to buy expensive things such as whole salamis.

Mrs C worked fulltime in the home and cooked a proper breakfast and dinner every day. (No ready meals in those days, not that she would have considered them.) Shopping (and getting laundry done at the laundrette) involved a long trek up and down a very steep hill, using a wicker basket on wheels. She kept a record of her expenditures in a small red book.

English cooking then was dire: grey beef, soggy cabbage; pasta only came tinned with orange sauce. I was introduced to Wiener Schnitzel, stuffed cucumber, soup with dumplings, stew served with pasta, not potato, and even steak tartare. The baking, in true German tradition, was superb: Apfelstrudel, Nusskranz (nut loaf), and at Christmas, Haselnuss Sterne (nut biscuits) and Stollen – big fruit loaves baked in bulk and given as presents.

There I began to respect food and learn to cook. I still make Never Fail fruitcake – pictured above – but I never mastered the art of rolling out strudel pastry – Mrs C's was so thin it covered the whole kitchen counter top and was see-through. I also learned never to waste food.

Eventually Dad found a flat in a new block. We lived fairly happily until I was old enough to leave home. I practised my cooking on him – as a novice, I hated anyone watching me at work but he would insist on putting his head round the kitchen door. When booted out, he invariably chirped, "I was only taking an intelligent interest." Grrr. Sonya Mills

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